Monitoring of Internet pet sales is long overdue

Itís one thing to cut corners for profit when dealing with inanimate objects. Itís quite another when your commodity is a living, breathing, feeling organism.

Neither strikes us as good business. But only one can wade Ė or perhaps enthusiastically dive Ė into the deep waters of cruelty solely for the sake of a few extra bucks.

But apparently thatís how one maximizes the bottom line when trading in dogs and cats and other species who keep us company in return for our care and feeding.

Itís a sore spot for anyone with a cherished pet. Itís a sore spot for Pennsylvania, which long endured a reputation for harboring so-called puppy mills where breeding dogs lived in ghastly conditions until 2008, ostensibly, when the state enacted Dog Law reforms to put a stop to it. The results have been a mixed bag, owing to glacial implementation, a dearth of enforcement manpower, and political leadership inclined to pander to even the most rapacious of industries.

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But it turns out that Pennsylvania was far from the only place with a puppy mill problem. It seems the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been on this case for years. It conducted an audit in 2010 that found more than 80 percent of sampled animal breeders were not being monitored or inspected in terms of the animalsí health and humane treatment.

According to the USDAís Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the result was that buyers unsuprisingly ended up with unhealthy pets, particularly dogs. Breeders escaped oversight, it said, by selling animals over the Internet and claiming ďretail pet storeĒ status which, under the decades-old Animal Welfare Act, provided inspection exemptions on the assumption that people would buy pets from bricks-and-mortar stores where they could get the opportunity to inspect the animal firsthand.

As a result, in September the USDA announced a change in the definition of a ďretail pet storeĒ under the Animal Welfare Act to bring inspection and monitoring to animals subjected to Internet transactions, and maintain a pet store inspection exemption for places where people can meet the animals they buy. The changes took effect Monday. Internet sellers and other businesses that deal in animals sight unseen will be forced to obtain licenses and be inspected by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

Now, we canít imagine why anyone would buy a pet without meeting it first. That would be akin to buying a car, or a musical instrument, or any number of things that depend on delicate parts and precision assembly and careful handling.

But this isnít a case of protecting consumers from their own impatience or laziness. This is about casting some light into a dim corner of the animal breeding industry where a lot of ugly things happen. Much of that room remains to be illuminated, but this is a good step toward ensuring healthy and cruelty-free pets for those ready to love them.